Costs in PKR
Social media budgets for Pakistani online stores
An online store doing PKR 500,000 a month in sales should put 10 to 15 percent back into marketing — roughly PKR 50,000 to 75,000, split about two-thirds ads and one-third content. Judge it on cost per delivered order, not per click, because Pakistani cash-on-delivery returns eat margin.
The numbers
| Monthly sales (PKR) | Marketing budget (PKR) | Split (ads / content) | What it should buy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 200,000 | 20,000 – 35,000 | 50 / 50 | Content first; the catalogue is not ready to scale |
| 200,000 – 500,000 | 30,000 – 75,000 | 60 / 40 | Steady ads on the three products that sell |
| 500,000 – 2 million | 75,000 – 250,000 | 65 / 35 | Retargeting, catalogue ads, a monthly shoot |
| 2 million+ | 250,000 – 800,000 | 70 / 30 | Creator campaigns plus always-on ads |
Figures as of August 2026. Source: Budgets Islamabad Digital Marketing builds with e-commerce clients, August 2026, plus rates observed in the Islamabad and Rawalpindi market..
| Metric | How to work it out | Why it beats the obvious one |
|---|---|---|
| Cost per delivered order | Ad spend ÷ orders that were paid for | Cash-on-delivery returns make 'orders' misleading |
| Contribution per order | Price − product cost − delivery − return loss | Tells you what you can afford to pay per sale |
| Return rate by product | Returned ÷ dispatched, per SKU | One bad-sizing product can eat a whole campaign |
| Repeat rate at 90 days | Customers who ordered twice ÷ total | Decides whether you can outbid competitors |
| Cost per WhatsApp order | Spend ÷ orders closed in chat | Many Pakistani stores sell mostly in DMs |
Figures as of August 2026. Source: Reporting framework Islamabad Digital Marketing uses with e-commerce clients, August 2026..
What these numbers actually mean
Cash on delivery changes the whole calculation and most store owners in Pakistan budget as though it does not. An order is not revenue until the rider hands it over and comes back with the money. If a fifth of your dispatched orders come back, your real cost per sale is 25 percent higher than Ads Manager shows, plus the delivery charge on both legs. Put the return rate into the same spreadsheet as the ad spend, or the campaign that looks profitable is quietly losing you money.
Selling on Daraz and selling on your own store need different budgets. Daraz brings traffic and takes commission, so your marketing job there is ranking, reviews and campaign days. Your own store brings no traffic at all, so all of it must be bought or earned, and the budget is much larger — but the customer is yours and you can message them at Eid. Most Pakistani sellers should run both and stop pretending the numbers are comparable.
Content is not a nice-to-have for a store, it is the input to the ad account. The single biggest gain we see is replacing catalogue images with fifteen-second phone videos of the product being handled, unboxed or worn, because those cut the cost per order without any change to targeting. Budget a third of your marketing money to producing new creative every month, or you will end up raising spend behind an ad the audience has already stopped seeing.
About these numbers
Social media budgets for Pakistani online stores
An online store doing PKR 500,000 a month in sales should put 10 to 15 percent back into marketing — roughly PKR 50,000 to 75,000, split about two-thirds ads and one-third content. Judge it on cost per delivered order, not per click, because Pakistani cash-on-delivery returns eat margin.
Where do these figures come from?
Budgets Islamabad Digital Marketing builds with e-commerce clients, August 2026, plus rates observed in the Islamabad and Rawalpindi market. Reporting framework Islamabad Digital Marketing uses with e-commerce clients, August 2026. Everything is dated so you can see how current it is, and we update the tables rather than quietly leaving old numbers up.
Is advertising budget included in any of these prices?
No. Wherever a management or service fee is quoted here, ad spend is separate and paid directly to the platform. We never mark up an ad budget and neither should anyone else.
Checked and updated
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